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[P]oetry resembles metaphysics: one does not mind one's own, but one does not like anyone else's.

Samuel Butler

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Samuel Butler
Age: 66 †
Born: 1835
Born: December 4
Died: 1902
Died: June 18
Farmer
Novelist
Painter
Photographer
Poet
Science Fiction Writer
Translator
Writer
Notts
Cellarius
Metaphysics
Anyone
Else
Doe
Mind
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Resembles

More quotes by Samuel Butler

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Prayers are to men as dolls are to children. They are not without use and comfort, but it is not easy to take them very seriously.
Samuel Butler
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Fear is static that prevents me from hearing myself.
Samuel Butler
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The wish to spread those opinions that we hold conducive to our own welfare is so deeply rooted in the English character that few of us can escape its influence.
Samuel Butler
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People care more about being thought to have taste than about being thought either good, clever or amiable.
Samuel Butler
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If we attend continually and promptly to the little that we can do, we shall ere long be surprised to find how little remains that we cannot do.
Samuel Butler
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Man is God's highest present development. He is the latest thing in God.
Samuel Butler
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If God wants us to do a thing, he should make his wishes sufficiently clear. Sensible people will wait till he has done this before paying much attention to him.
Samuel Butler
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It is not he who gains the exact point in dispute who scores most in controversy - but he who has shown the better temper.
Samuel Butler
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When people talk of atoms obeying fixed laws, they are either ascribing some kind of intelligence and free will to atoms or they are talking nonsense. There is no obedience unless there is at any rate a potentiality of disobeying.
Samuel Butler
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Half the vices which the world condemns most loudly have seeds of good in them and require moderate use rather than total abstinence.
Samuel Butler
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Man is the only animal that laughs and has a state legislature.
Samuel Butler
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There is a photographer in every bush, going about like a roaring lion seeking whom he may devour.
Samuel Butler
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Oaths are but words, and words are but wind.
Samuel Butler
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Mr. Tennyson has said that more things are wrought by prayer than this world dreams of, but he wisely refrains from saying whether they are good or bad things.
Samuel Butler
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The man who lets himself be bored is even more contemptible than the bore.
Samuel Butler
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Inspiration is never genuine if it is known as inspiration at the time. True inspiration always steals on a person its importance not being fully recognized for some time.
Samuel Butler
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When you've told someone that you've left them a legacy the only decent thing to do is to die at once.
Samuel Butler
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Youth is like spring, an over praised season more remarkable for biting winds than genial breezes. Autumn is the mellower season, and what we lose in flowers we more than gain in fruits.
Samuel Butler
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Since God himself cannot change the past, He is obliged to tolerate the existence of historians.
Samuel Butler
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From a worldly point of view, there is no mistake so great as that of being always right.
Samuel Butler